


Shades of Longing

by MajorPidge (ScoracleTrash)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ghosts, M/M, Modern AU, One Shot, Unrequited Love, ghost/human romance, oblique coronavirus references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoracleTrash/pseuds/MajorPidge
Summary: Armitage Hux moves into an old house with his cat, Millicent, and learns to believe in ghosts.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Enric Pryde
Kudos: 16





	Shades of Longing

Millicent, the ginger cat, could see Enric Pryde.

She saw him first the day that she and her owner, Armitage Hux, moved into the old house at the end of the tree-lined lane. She watched him descend the stairs and tilt his head at Hux as he carried in a stack of boxes and set them in the parlor. She watched him follow Hux into the parlor and pass directly by him, causing the ginger-haired man to stand up and shiver.

“Bit drafty, isn’t it, girl?” Hux had asked her, “We’ll fix that before long.”

There’s no fixing this sort of draft, silly, the cat thought.

She saw him again a few days later, as Hux was unpacking books into the library. He ran his fingers along the spines of some of the books, considering them for a moment.

Good taste, Pryde said to the cat, and Millicent mewed at him.

“You can’t be hungry again already,” Hux said to her.

I wasn’t talking to you, said the look she gave him, but he didn’t seem to get it.

Then Pryde crossed the room and sat down in a chair. Millicent went over to investigate.

Who are you? She asked with a tilt of her head.

This is my house, the ghost said back to her.

But it’s Hux’s house, said her tilt in the opposite direction.

We’ll have to share it, said Pryde.

That satisfied Millicent, for now. After all, she shared the house with Hux.

Pryde liked to watch Hux, and Hux liked to watch Millicent, so Hux found himself inadvertently watching Pryde often, though he couldn’t see him as she could.

Pryde was nice as far as ghosts go. He would scratch Millie on the belly and behind the ears, which was nice even though his hands were cold. He would trail the tie of his velvet robe along the floor for her to chase after. He would talk to her sweetly. He seemed to like cats.

She asked him.

He said he did, and that he had a cat when he was alive.

So you’re not alive anymore? She asked.

No, he said, I died some time ago.

What happened?

I fell down the stairs.

Hux is going to fall down the stairs if he keeps checking his work email while he walks down them, she said with a measure of a parent frustrated with their child.

Yes, he is, said Pryde, with a bit of a laugh.

Millicent didn’t fully understand the look in Pryde’s eyes as he watched her owner over the next few weeks, as the boxes were unpacked and new wallpaper was put up, carefully selected wallpaper meant to reflect the year the house was built. Hux was very serious about making the house look as close to its original appearance as possible.

Pryde approved.

*  
He was the kind of young man that, had Pryde been alive, he would’ve leapt at, damn the consequences.

As it were, he could only admire him from afar. Think of him in secret.

At night, when the man and the cat slept soundly, Pryde would sit on the edge of Hux’s bed, and pull back the covers gently, and run his spectral hand along the young man’s body. Ever so lightly, not enough to wake him, just enough to give him a slight chill.

He began merely by ruffling his hair, caressing his cheek.

He moved on to letting his fingers trail in the pits of the young man’s collarbone and throat.

Then across his chest, then down his abdomen, then… 

Well, he never went that far. That wouldn’t be something a gentleman should do.

He had an immense fondness for the lithe young thing. He was stressed, too concerned with work, for a man his age. Sometimes Pryde would leach a little electromagnetic power from Hux’s devices, letting them die early, giving the boy a respite from his constant string of emails and projects. Sometimes he would breathe a breeze across his brow that would make him look in the direction of the cup of tea he was neglecting.

Sometimes he turned on the television as if to say, “Sit down and do nothing for a little while, darling; you’ve been at it all day.”

What good care he could take of the young man, if only he weren’t stuck like this.

*

Hux began to speak to Millicent of the ghost in the house.

“Must be the ghost again,” he’d say if a chill air came over him.

“I guess the ghost doesn’t want me working,” he’d say when his tablet would die.

“The ghost says it’s time for bed,” if his phone died in the evening.

Even,

“I suppose the ghost likes costume dramas,” when the television turned on and something like Gentleman Jack was playing.

Millicent wasn’t quite certain Hux was perceptive enough to realize he was correct on all fronts; he always seemed to say it as if he were joking.

On the phone with his colleagues, he would mention that he thought the house to be haunted. Of course, he would mention things like drafts and creaking in the night that Millicent knew were just the house, not Pryde. Maybe he was going a little mad, cooped up like this. He hadn’t left for more than half an hour in months; he said something about everyone being sick outside, and about how it was important that he limit his contact with the outside world.

Still, Millie liked him being home so much. Lots of belly rubs and lots of treats. Hux moved throughout the house all day, from desk to couch to bed, and there was always a way for her to catch his attention, be it laying across his keyboard, or laying her head on his leg, or curling up in the lap space that existed between him and the computer, no matter how small.

The longer she watched Pryde, the sadder his eyes became.

He only moved objects when Hux wasn’t around. She imagined Hux would just see the object floating and panic; it was smart, on Pryde’s part. He didn’t move objects much. Usually, the only time he would was when Hux forgot to put the kettle on for tea. 

“I don’t remember putting tea on,” Hux would say as he scratched Millicent behind the ears and rose to attend to the whistling kettle, “You must’ve done it for me, huh, girl?”

Don’t be ridiculous, she’d say, but as always, he would misinterpret the meow as a desire for wet food.

It was annoying to be misinterpreted, but not annoying to receive wet food.

*  
What are you doing, you old fool? Pryde would ask himself as he sat on the edge of Hux’s bed in the middle of the night.

But he had begun, every now and then, to lean down and kiss the young man’s forehead.

I wonder if he dreams of me, he thought.

What are you doing? Asked the cat. She was awake.

I love your owner, was all Pryde said.

I love him too, said Millie, You know, in a way, he’s like your cat.

Pryde laughed. I suppose he is, he said.

He stood and went to the wall, where he reached for a piece of wallpaper added in the 1980s and ripped it along its seam. He tossed the torn piece to Millie, and she began to hunt it.

*

In the morning, Hux was vexed by the wallpaper. “I mean, I was going to take it all down eventually,” he said, “Sooner rather than later, I suppose.”

It was a Saturday, and so he decided to get to work.

No sooner had he removed the whole panel that he noticed a fifteen by ten inch square in the wall that appeared to be removable.

He dug his fingernail carefully under the edge and pulled it back. It had been glued in place, and it took some pulling to make it give.

The safe inside wasn’t locked. Closed, but not locked. 

Pryde explained to Millicent that his faithful servant had replaced the panel, which had once hid behind a painting, and glued it shut so that Pryde’s worthless cousin, the inheritor of his estate, could never locate it.

He had been going downstairs to fetch some money to put in it, and hadn’t locked it after his nightly check of it, when he fell, hit his head on the banister, and died.

Hux blinked at the sight of the contents.

A small box held what must’ve been Pryde’s parent’s wedding rings. Several sets of shirt studs, cufflinks, and tie pins that had been set with precious stones sat in larger boxes. A leather bag that held several thousand dollars in antique bills. And a photograph.

Hux brushed the dust from it and took it in.

The man was serious-looking, with gaunt cheekbones and temples, a high widow’s peak and striking eyes that stared directly into the primitive camera.

Hux shivered.

“I wonder if this is our ghost,” he said, chewing his lip.

Millicent would’ve rolled her eyes if she could’ve.

Of course it is, she meowed.

Hux closed the safe again, careful not to lock it. He was determined to have the objects inside appraised, though he couldn’t imagine selling such intimate things. Maybe the family would want them...but no. When he bought the house the realtor had stated there was no family.

These things were his, now, and he had a responsibility to care for them.

Downstairs, he placed the photograph into a spare frame and set it on the parlor mantle.

Whoever this was, and Hux intended to find out, it was as much his house as it was Hux’s.

“If you’re here,” he said aloud after a moment of hesitation, “Thank you.”

Pryde placed his hand on Hux’s shoulder, causing the young man to shiver again.

For the first time in his life, Hux started to believe in ghosts.


End file.
